There
is one question that persistently circles the community of Unidentified Flying
Object (UFO) true-believers: If the government has nothing to hide, UFO fans
often ask, then why is it keeping so many UFO records under lock and
key?

"Well,
it turns out that the government does have something to hide, but it has
nothing to do with extraterrestrials," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project
on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C.

A
document has surfaced that had been stamped "Top Secret Umbra"--the codeword for
the highest, most sensitive category of communications intelligence.

The
once-classified affidavit was originally filed by the National Security Agency (NSA)
in a 1980 lawsuit to justify the withholding of records on UFOs. The document
is largely declassified--with certain sections cut out, ostensibly to protect
employee names, and keep NSA technologies, skills, and foreign connections out
of the limelight.

The
document--In Camera Affidavit of Eugene F. Yeates: Citizens Against UFO
Secrecy v. National Security Agency, October 9, 1980--was released in
redacted form on November 3 in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request
from researcher Michael Ravnitzky and posted on the website of the Federation
of American Scientists.

Foreign signals

A
read of the document yields insight into how a super-secret agency like the NSA
became caught up in the UFO phenomenon.

Created
in November 1952, The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is America's cryptologic organization. It coordinates, directs, and performs highly
specialized activities to protect U.S. government information systems and
churns out foreign signals intelligence information.

Being
a high-tech organization, the NSA is a cutting-edge home for communications and
data processing. It is also a center for foreign language analysis and research
within the government.

The
just-released 1980 document explains that a total of 239 documents related to
UFOs were located in NSA files, with 79 of those documents originating with
other government agencies. One document is an account by an NSA official
attending a UFO symposium. A healthy chunk of these reports were produced
between 1958 and 1979.

Deceptive data

The
titles of NSA-related UFO documents that are noted in the declassified document
are intriguing, such as UFO Hypothesis and Survival Questions.

Another
title cited is UFO's and the Intelligence Community Blind Spot to Surprise
or Deceptive Data. In this seven-page, undated, unofficial draft of a
monograph authored by an unnamed NSA employee, the author reportedly points out
what he considers to be "a serious shortcoming" in the NSA's communications intelligence
(COMINT) interception and reporting procedures. That is, "the inability to
respond correctly to surprising information or deliberately deceptive data."

The
unidentified author uses the UFO phenomenon to illustrate his belief that the
inability of the U.S. intelligence community to process this type of unusual
data adversely affects U.S. intelligence gathering capabilities.

Within
the pages of the newly-released affidavit--and between sections of excised copy--it
shows NSA intercepted in 1971 communications between two aircraft and a ground
controller discussing a "phenomena" in the sky, as well as radar screen
observations, labeling what was viewed as "unidentifiable" objects.

Other
intercepted and decrypted reports of bright lights, luminous objects, and
unidentified aircraft--along with an elongated ball of fire--scooting through the
skies over non-U.S. countries are noted too.

Intercept operations

The
21-page affidavit makes clear that release of documents for public scrutiny,
for a variety of reasons, "would seriously damage the ability of the United States to gather this vital intelligence information."

Furthermore,
how the NSA works with a network of foreign sources, organizations, and other
governments to secure intelligence data would be adversely affected.

The
majority of these records, explained NSA official Eugene F. Yeates in the 1980 affidavit,
were communications intelligence reports that "are the product of intercept
operations directed against foreign government controlled communications
systems within their territorial boundaries."

New insight

According
to Aftergood, the newly declassified Yeates affidavit provides new insight into
the types of records sought by UFO researchers that have been withheld by NSA.

"Even
with all of the deletions, one can get a sense of the enormous scale--and the
apparent success--of the worldwide electronic intercept operations conducted by
NSA at the height of the Cold War," Aftergood told SPACE.com.

"Unfortunately
it is not clear from the affidavit how the withheld documents might have
related to UFOs," Aftergood said. "There must have been some connection in
order for them to be within the scope of the original FOIA request...but I have
no idea what it was."

But
for those hungry to show a great government conspiracy is at work and that
alien-driven UFOs routinely cruise through our skies, the just brought to light
document won't help you.

"The
affidavit does not discount the UFO phenomenon...it simply doesn't address it one
way or the other," Aftergood concluded.